"Commentary from P.M. Carpenter"

August 11, 2017

Kid Rock bottom (excluding Trump)

The president of the McConnell-endorsed Senate Leadership Fund (a super PAC) said this morning on C-Span that "We’d be actually very interested" in the United States Senate candidacy of Robert Ritchie — a.k.a "Kid Rock" — who himself has said that if you have worked hard and paid taxes, "you should be able to easily understand and navigate the laws, tax codes, health care and anything else the government puts in place" (my emphasis).

It's logic like that that has given the GOP the government-comprehending depths of such practical luminaries as Sarah Palin, Louie Gohmert, James Inhofe, Michele Bachmann, Ben Carson and the utterly clueless and mentally diseased Donald Trump. And it's electoral logic like that that now has Kid Rock trailing the vastly experienced and deeply informed Democratic senator from Michigan, Debbie Stabenow, by only 8 points.

It could be objected that Democrats put a "Saturday Night Live" comedian in the U.S. Senate, but Al Franken built much of his showbiz career on a foundation of political humor and policy critiques. And to the best of my recollection, Mr. Franken didn't formally enter politics with the announcement that "if I decide to throw my hat in the ring for US Senate, believe me … it’s game on mthrfkers." No, that sort of class, eloquence and smarts has been reserved by the Anthony Scaramucci of Republican politics, Kid Rock.

Such is the consequence of the party of Lincoln, T. Roosevelt and Eisenhower turning to populism — a vulgar construct in which the lowest common denominator achieves the highest political success. Call me an insufferable elitist if you like, but I fully endorse the founders' fear of Kid Rock. They understood the folly behind the rather recent Republican logic of better governance by "the first two-thousand people in the Boston telephone directory than by the two-thousand people on the faculty of Harvard University."

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Kid Rock bottom (excluding Trump)

The president of the McConnell-endorsed Senate Leadership Fund (a super PAC) said this morning on C-Span that "We’d be actually very interested" in the United States Senate candidacy of Robert Ritchie — a.k.a "Kid Rock" — who himself has said that if you have worked hard and paid taxes, "you should be able to easily understand and navigate the laws, tax codes, health care and anything else the government puts in place" (my emphasis).

It's logic like that that has given the GOP the government-comprehending depths of such practical luminaries as Sarah Palin, Louie Gohmert, James Inhofe, Michele Bachmann, Ben Carson and the utterly clueless and mentally diseased Donald Trump. And it's electoral logic like that that now has Kid Rock trailing the vastly experienced and deeply informed Democratic senator from Michigan, Debbie Stabenow, by only 8 points.

It could be objected that Democrats put a "Saturday Night Live" comedian in the U.S. Senate, but Al Franken built much of his showbiz career on a foundation of political humor and policy critiques. And to the best of my recollection, Mr. Franken didn't formally enter politics with the announcement that "if I decide to throw my hat in the ring for US Senate, believe me … it’s game on mthrfkers." No, that sort of class, eloquence and smarts has been reserved by the Anthony Scaramucci of Republican politics, Kid Rock.

Such is the consequence of the party of Lincoln, T. Roosevelt and Eisenhower turning to populism — a vulgar construct in which the lowest common denominator achieves the highest political success. Call me an insufferable elitist if you like, but I fully endorse the founders' fear of Kid Rock. They understood the folly behind the rather recent Republican logic of better governance by "the first two-thousand people in the Boston telephone directory than by the two-thousand people on the faculty of Harvard University."